Soleimannejad Mostafa, Ebrahimi-Barough Somayeh, Nadri Samad, Riazi-Esfahani Mohammad, Soleimani Masoud, Tavangar Seyed Mohammad, Ai Jafar
Department of Tissue Engineering and Applied Cell Sciences, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Department of Medical Biotechnology and Nanotechnology, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Science, Zanjan, Iran.
Med Hypotheses. 2017 Apr;101:75-77. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2017.02.019. Epub 2017 Mar 2.
Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age related macular degeneration (AMD) are two retinal diseases that progress by photoreceptor cells death. In retinal transplantation studies, stem and progenitor cells inject into the sub retinal space or vitreous and then these cells can be migrate to the site of retinal degeneration and locate in the host retina and restitute vision.
Our hypothesis suggests that using human conjunctiva stem cells (as the source for increasing the number of human stem cells progenitor cells in retina dysfunction diseases) with fibrin gel and also assessing its relating in vitro (cellular and molecular processes) and in vivo (vision tests and pathology) could be a promising strategy for treatment of AMD and RP disorders.
In this idea, we describe a novel approach for retina tissue engineering with differentiation of conjunctiva mesenchymal stem cells (CJMSCs) into photoreceptor-like cells in fibrin gel with induction medium contain taurine. For assessment of differentiation, immunocytochemistry and real time PCR are used for the expression of Rhodopsin, RPE65, Nestin as differentiated photoreceptor cell markers in 2D and 3D culture. The results show that fibrin gel will offer a proper 3D scaffold for CJMSCs derived photoreceptor cell-like cells.
Application of immune-privileged, readily available sources of adult stem cells like human conjunctiva stem cells with fibrin gel would be a promising strategy to increase the number of photoreceptor progenitor cells and promote involuntary angiogenesis needed in retina layer repair and regeneration.
视网膜色素变性（RP）和年龄相关性黄斑变性（AMD）是两种因光感受器细胞死亡而进展的视网膜疾病。在视网膜移植研究中，干细胞和祖细胞被注入视网膜下间隙或玻璃体，然后这些细胞可迁移至视网膜变性部位并定位于宿主视网膜中，从而恢复视力。
我们的假设表明，将人结膜干细胞（作为增加视网膜功能障碍疾病中人类干细胞祖细胞数量的来源）与纤维蛋白凝胶一起使用，并评估其在体外（细胞和分子过程）和体内（视力测试和病理学）的相关性，可能是治疗AMD和RP疾病的一种有前景的策略。
在这个设想中，我们描述了一种用于视网膜组织工程的新方法，即将结膜间充质干细胞（CJMSCs）在含有牛磺酸的诱导培养基中分化为纤维蛋白凝胶中的光感受器样细胞。为了评估分化情况，免疫细胞化学和实时PCR用于检测视紫红质、RPE65、巢蛋白作为2D和3D培养中分化光感受器细胞标志物的表达。结果表明，纤维蛋白凝胶将为CJMSCs衍生的光感受器样细胞提供合适的3D支架。
将免疫赦免、易于获得的成人干细胞来源（如人结膜干细胞）与纤维蛋白凝胶一起应用，将是增加光感受器祖细胞数量并促进视网膜层修复和再生所需的非自愿血管生成的一种有前景的策略。
